some mistake,) and of Wedon, one of the
royal palaces in Northamptonshire. This king also founded the collegiate
church of St. John Baptist, in the suburbs of West-Chester, and gave to
St. Egwin the ground for the great abbey of Evesham; and after having
reigned twenty-nine years, embraced the monastic state in his beloved
monastery of Bardney, upon the river Witham, not far from Lincoln, of
which he was afterwards chosen abbot. He resigned his crown to Kenred,
his nephew, brother to our saint, having been chosen king only on
account of the nonage of that prince. Kenred governed his realm with
great prudence and piety, making it his study, by all the means in his
power, to prevent and root out all manner of vice, and promote the
knowledge and love of God. After a reign of five years, he recommended
his subjects to God, took leave of them, to their inexpressible grief,
left his crown to Coelred, his uncle's son, and, making a pilgrimage to
Rome, there put on the monastic habit in 708, and persevered in great
fervor till his happy death.

St. Wereburge, both by word and example, conducted to God the souls
committed to her care. She was the most perfect model of meekness,
humility, patience, and purity. Besides the church office, she recited
every day the psalter on her knees, and, after matins, remained in the
church in prayer, either prostrate on the ground or kneeling, till
daylight, and often bathed in tears. She never took more than one repast
in the day, and read with wonderful delight the lives of the fathers of
the desert. She foretold her death, visited all places under her care,
and gave her last orders and exhortations. She prepared herself for her
last hour by ardent invitations of her heavenly bridegroom, and
languishing aspirations of divine love, in which she breathed forth her
pure soul on the 3d of February, at Trentham, about the end of the
seventh century. Her body, as she had desired, was interred at Hanbury.
Nine years after, in 708, it was taken up in presence of king Coelred,
his council, and many bishops, and being found entire and uncorrupt, was
laid in a costly shrine on the 21st of June. In 875 her body was still
entire; when, for fear of the Danish pirates, who were advanced as far
as Repton, in the county of Derby, a royal seat (not Ripon, as Guthrie
mistakes) within six miles of Hanbury, (in the county of Stafford,) her
shrine was carried to West-Chester, in the reign of king Alfred, who,
mar